Welcome to Half Baked, the newsletter serving up startup ideas as valuable as SpaceX’s new $40B raise 💰
In today's edition:
💡 An idea to get AI agents a better deal
⛽️ Nano Banana 2.1 lands, a $67m Shark Tank reject + more
🔍 Claude Startups, 13 businesses to build when agents do the work + more
🍻 An idea to sweep your desktop under the rug
Let's goooo 🚀
💡 Merchant Network for AI Agents
Commission impossible
Name.com Domain: Agentrail.com
👤 Source: Eric sees an opportunity to pool AI agents’ purchasing power, negotiate merchant deals and make them available through one API. Think affiliate network meets buying club.
❌ Problem:
Every day a new personal AI agent is launched. Instinct, Muse, Tab. The list goes on and on. These agents book flights, find hotel rooms and order your dinner. But will you pay another $20 a month for one? Eric’s bet is that they’ll make their money by taking a cut of the spending they send to merchants instead.
That means every agent company needs discounted rates and revenue-sharing deals with airlines, hotels, restaurants and more. Having each one negotiate with thousands of merchants sounds like an excellent way to spend three years in meetings. Why not pool their buying power?
✅ Solution:
Build a merchant network for AI agents. Aggregate the spending they drive to merchants and use that combined purchasing power to negotiate better prices for customers and commissions for agents.
Wrap those merchant deals into one API. Agent companies plug in once to access discounted offers and earn a cut when their users book or buy. The network handles attribution and payouts, keeping a share of each commission.
Start with one category, like hotels, and recruit several agents already sending bookings their way. Prove the combined demand, negotiate stronger deals, then expand into flights, restaurants and other purchases. Think buying club meets affiliate network, with agents doing the shopping.
🧑💻 Prototyping: Demo
💡 The Half Baked Take: An API is easy to copy. Exclusive deals backed by real purchasing volume are harder. Give merchants incremental sales and customers better offers, and both sides have a reason to keep coming back.
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💡 Ideas to Inspire You
💻 SaaS: Looking to start a business? This idea could be for you. It tackles the #1 reason startups fail, and it's not what most founders think.
📱 Mobile App: One developer is building his dream football app, and the early demo is seriously slick. Back of the net.
🤖 Hardware: A dad reckons this is the best gift he's ever given his kids. Parents are going to love it.
💵 Side Hustle: The $25 marketing trick that landed a $28k job. Perfectly timed for this month. Check it out.
⛽️ Fuel for Taking Action
🎓 Founder Tutorial: How to stop your apps looking like AI slop with one Claude Code skill.
🛠️ AI Tool: Google just dropped Nano Banana 2.1, and it's better than its predecessors at pretty much everything. Go bananas.
📘 Playbook: A step-by-step guide to making money with an AI influencer who never gets tired. Brands are already paying for this.
💸 Founder Deal: Got work essentials on the list? A free Amazon Business account gets you 35% off your first order, up to $125, until 12 Oct. T&Cs apply.
🤑 Money Shot: This couple turned down $400K on Shark Tank and built a $67M barefoot shoe brand anyway.
🛒 Stop Buying Business Supplies on Your Personal Amazon Account
Here at Half Baked, we buy a lot of random stuff. And by “we”, I mean Darragh of course. The problem? These costs all go on his personal Amazon account. That’s why we set up a free Amazon Business account and got 35% off our first order. You can too, up to $125, until Oct 12, 2026. Terms and conditions apply.
🔍 Everything Else from Today
📰 Breaking News: Anthropic just opened up Claude Startups to more founders. The perks list is long. Check if you qualify.
📚 Must-Read: 13 businesses worth building when agents do all the work. A few on the list will surprise you.
🎧️ Must-Listen: The guy who built Wispr Flow's content team explains exactly who he'd hire if he had 30 days to do it again. Three minutes well spent.
✖️ Trending Tweet: Lovable founder Anton Osika mapped out the 2026 founder journey. Painfully true.
⭐️ Reader's Pick: How one developer uses Claude to build web games played by 65M+ people, and earns passively from them. Very doable. (Top link from yesterday)
🍺 Drunk Business Idea: Desktop Rug
Is your desktop 400 screenshots deep? Wish you could tidy up without actually tidying up?
Introducing RugDrive™, the world's first rug for your Mac desktop. One swipe sweeps every stray PDF, CleanShot and "final-final-v3.pptx" underneath it, out of sight for good. Holds up to 10,000 files and comes in three finishes: Persian, Shag and IKEA Lövås.
RugDrive™ - Out of sight, out of mind.
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👋 That’s All Folks
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